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WATN? (James L): Remember Robert Straniere, the former New York state Assemblyman and purveyor of
questionable hot dogs, who literally became the GOP's option of last resort to replace disgraced Rep. Vito Fossella on the ballot in New York's (then) 13th District back in 2008? We sure do. And we thought it might be time to check in on the man, nearly six years after his 33 percent finish against Democrat Mike McMahon.
It turns out that Straniere, who's returned to practicing law, is now tasking himself with rebuilding and reorganizing New York City's Republican Party, ostensibly through a monthly series of strategy sessions with each of the boroughs' GOP chairpersons. It's truly unfathomable that NYC Republicans would turn their organizational hopes to Straniere, whose House candidacy in 2008 repulsed so many in the Staten Island GOP establishment that the state party nominated him for a judgeship in an attempt to remove him from the ballot. Have New York City Republicans finally reached their nadir?
9:30 AM PT: IL-Gov: We Ask America's latest poll of the Illinois governor's race finds Republican Bruce Rauner leading Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn by a 47-33 margin, which is weird because earlier in the month, Rauner was up 51-39. That means both candidates' vote totals have declined, which doesn't really make a lot of sense, especially since TV advertising has picked up.
And in general, the polling in Illinois this year has been both crummy and sparse. The only three firms to go into the field here have been Rasmussen, YouGov, and We Ask America. Rasmussen is, of course, Rasmussen, while We Ask America is the polling arm of the extremely conservative and anti-union Illinois Manufacturers' Association, and both have poor track records. As for YouGov, their recent mega-batch of polling leaned strongly GOP but actually was somewhat optimistic for Quinn, finding him down just 49-46. Still, it'd be nice if PPP would revisit the state.
9:55 AM PT: LA-Sen: It seems like we're well past the point where movement conservatives might have a chance at stopping Rep. Bill Cassidy from carrying the GOP mantle in Louisiana, but Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is still holding out some hope. Perkins, who is also a former member of the state House, has endorsed Air Force vet Rob Maness, who is now the only notable Republican alternative to Cassidy with state Rep. Paul Hollis' recent departure from the race. Maness has almost no money, though, so he'd need major help from the tea party establishment to have a prayer. But beyond Perkins, who doesn't really command much cash, it doesn't look like any assistance is coming.
10:44 AM PT: KS-, TN-Sen: As Andrea Drusch notes—and as longtime readers here have often observed—doctors tend to stick with their own when it comes to politics, whether its ophthalmologists supporting ophthalmologists, dentists supporting dentists, or anesthesiologists supporting anesthesiologists. But one group of medical professionals has taken a different tack this year: the radiologists. The American College of Radiology Association's political arm, known by the awesomely '80s name of RADPAC, has spent $230,000 on mailers to help Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, even though both face primary challenges from radiologists.
The main reason is simple, though, as Drusch explains: Both Roberts and Alexander are senior members of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and the radiologists are happy with their policy-making efforts. And given that Roberts' opponent, Milton Wolf, is under investigation by the state's medical board for posting patients' X-rays on Facebook and making offensive comments about them, he's someone respectable physicians want to stay away from.
1:31 PM PT: AR-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor has just released the barest details of a new internal poll from Harstad Research, which places him up 45-39 on GOP Rep. Tom Cotton. This is actually the first poll since early May to find Pryor leading, but except for the recent YouGov survey that had Cotton ahead 50-46, every single set of numbers has come from Republican outfits.
We recently took a look at Harstad's track record, and for the most part, they did quite well last cycle, without a consistent bias in either direction. A new independent poll from Talk Business is also due out a little later today.
1:53 PM PT: KS-04: GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo has released an internal poll from CMA Strategies (a firm with zero entries in our multi-year database) showing him ahead of his primary challenger, ex-Rep. Todd Tiahrt, by a 45-26 margin. It's undoubtedly pushback aimed at a recent SurveyUSA poll that showed Tiahrt trailing just 46-39. Kansas' primary is just a week away, so you'd imagine that if Pompeo were in real trouble, his high-powered allies—the Kochs and the Club for Growth—would swoop in. Still, this race might be closer than Pompeo would like, and he wouldn't be the first Republican to misjudge the seriousness of an intra-party threat.
2:24 PM PT: AR-Sen, -Gov: Here's a link to the Harstad memo. And while it's not included in the memo, James Hohmann says the poll also found Republican Asa Hutchinson edging Democrat Mike Ross 42-41 in the governor's race.
2:45 PM PT (Jeff Singer): Ads:
• AK-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Begich's new spot takes an interesting approach. A self-described Republican touts what a great team Alaska has in Begich and Republican colleague Lisa Murkowski, and argues that the pair should be kept together in the Senate. Murkowski is a big supporter of Begich's main rival former state Attorney General Dan Sullivan, and she has made it clear she does not appreciate Begich using her in his ads.
• HI-Sen: Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz.
• IA-Sen: Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley's second spot thankfully cuts out the chicken shit we saw in his first ad. This one wastes no time painting Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst as an extremist for opposing a federal minimum wage.
• NC-Sen: Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.
• CT-Gov: Republican Senate Minority Leader John McKinney.
• IL-Gov: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.
• WI-Gov: Democratic businesswoman Mary Burke.
• FL-18: Republican former state Rep. Carl Domino has his first ad. The total radio and TV buy is only $50,000.
• HI-01: Democratic state Rep. Mark Takai.
• IN-02: Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski.
• MA-06: Republican former state Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei.
2:50 PM PT: CT-Gov: This is about as thin a poll writeup as you can get, and ordinarily, I'd triage a story like this, but Connecticut polling has been so infrequent that any crumbs will do. With that caveat out of the way, the website Only in Bridgeport says that a survey from Democratic pollster Anzalone Liszt Grove for a "national political consulting company" taken three weeks ago (and with an unknown sample size) finds Gov. Dan Malloy in a 46-all tie with his Republican challenger, businessman Tom Foley. That's better than the 48-41 Foley lead YouGov just found, but it's far from great for a vulnerable incumbent's internal polling.
And because of the lack of details, we don't know if the poll tested ex-state Rep. Jonathan Pelto, a liberal Democrat who is running to Malloy's left as an independent. Pelto's hoping to capitalize on unhappiness that many in organized labor feel toward Malloy, and in particular the teachers unions, which are still furious over the governor's hostile remarks about tenure two years ago. Pelto's presence on the ballot could seriously hurt Malloy, and if he wasn't include in the horserace question, then these numbers are even worse for the incumbent than they appear.
2:51 PM PT (Jeff Singer): Chicago Mayor: Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been staring at plenty of bad polls ahead of the February 2015 election, but he finally has a good one to point to. David Binder Research, on behalf of Ed Choice Illinois, gives Rahm a 45-33 lead over potential opponent Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. A recent poll from We Ask America gave us a very different result, showing Lewis up 45-36 in a hypothetical match-up.
3:20 PM PT: NH-Sen, IA-03: Quirky law professor Larry Lessig has created a quirky new super PAC called Mayday with the knowingly ironic aim of trying to reduce the influence of big money in politics ... by spending big money on politics. Lessig says his group will shell out $12 million in advertising on behalf of candidates who support clamping down on unfettered campaign spending, starting with Democrat Staci Appel, who is running for Iowa's open 3rd Congressional District, and Republican Jim Rubens, a Senate aspirant in New Hampshire. While Appel has a good shot at victory (we rate the race a Tossup), Rubens has generally polled in single digits in the GOP primary, where Scott Brown is set to cruise. Lessig, at least, is no stranger to long-shot crusades.
3:24 PM PT: AR-Sen: Meanwhile, a new Talk Business-Hendrix College poll shows the race headed in Cotton's direction. He now leads 44-42, with the Green Party candidate taking 4 and the Libertarian 3. In April, back when a spate of polls brought good news for the incumbent, Pryor was up 46-43.